Category: Closed Course

Posted on

Windows Subsystem for Linux Windows Interoperability Brings Linux Commands to Windows CLI

The Windows Subsystem for Linux can invoke native Windows binaries and be invoked from a Windows command line. This feature is available to Windows 10 users running Anniversary Update build 14951. This new interoperability functionality delivers a seamless experience between Windows and WSL. Technical details on how this interoperability works can be found on the WSL blog.

Source: Windows Interoperability | MSDN

This is pretty cool. From either command prompt (CMD) or PowerShell you can use the syntax bash -c “ls -la” to invoke basic Linux commands without launching the Ubuntu environment. More advanced tools like curl are also available.

The article indicates the reverse is also true but I wasn’t able to get Windows binaries running from the bash window. I don’t know if it’s a bug or something about my configuration.

 

Posted on

TIL the server side of Slack is written in PHP. How about that?

Slack uses PHP for most of its server-side application logic, which is an unusual choice these days. Why did we choose to build a new project in this language? Should you?
…
PHP-the-language has many flaws, which undoubtedly have slowed these efforts down, but PHP-the-environment has virtues which more than compensate for those flaws. And the options for improving on PHP’s language-level flaws are pretty impressive. On the balance, PHP provides better support for building, changing, and operating a successful project than competing environments. I would start a new project in PHP today, with a reservation or two, but zero apologies.

by Keith Adams, Slack Engineering

Source: Taking PHP Seriously

Rather interesting to learn that the server side of Slack is written in PHP. I guess I assumed it was a Ruby or Go thing. I think it’s useful to hear about success stories for a mature language like PHP. It shows us that just because something has been around for awhile doesn’t mean it can’t do something cool.

 

Posted on

Should everyone have a blog?

Nary a legal tech confab goes by without some speaker exhorting the crowd to get online and start blogging. Much the same happens at gatherings in other industries too.1» Everyone should have blog! becomes a sort of rallying cry to drive some lagging profession into the high tech world of the late 20th century.2» But what’s the point, really? Saying “everyone should blog” is a lot like saying “anyone can be president”, while it’s technically true, it isn’t very likely.

I get it, there is value in blogging. This blog has been kicking around for 16 years. Early on I was a big proponent of blogging, pushing colleagues and conference attendees to get on board. And pretty much nothing happened. Turns out a blog isn’t magic. It doesn’t open some sort of tech spigot from which much wisdom and Google foo flows. What it is is work, and writing, mostly writing. Did I mention the writing?

If you want a popular and effective blog you have to be a writer. Turns out a lot of people don’t like to write. I’ve kept this thing limping along by stuffing it full of links to other things, and running it for my own future reference. And you have to have something to say that interests people. That’s also hard. For example if more than 10 people read this bit I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

When I hear the familiar refrain of “Everyone needs to blog” I think about what they are likely getting at. First: write more, write publicly. That’s what a good blog needs. Second: adopt technology, try new things. Don’t be scared off by the tech. Third: find your voice, express yourself. That is probably the hard part.

To answer the titular question, yes, everyone should at least try blogging, you might be good at it.

or so I’ve heard. Truth be told, I don’t get out much these daysPowered by Hackadelic Sliding Notes 1.6.5
Yes, blogs are that old and they haven’t really changed, besides getting prettier, since the late 90’sPowered by Hackadelic Sliding Notes 1.6.5
Posted on

Are we back? Getting past WP Android client issues

It seems that the WordPress Android client did not take kindly to my decision to go all in on the https craze. I needed to delete the site from the app and as it back again. 

2 things would have been useful here. First, a more descriptive error message. The 405 Method not  allowed message didn’t tell me anything. I knew it wasn’t working. Maybe a hint that it could be related to a change on the site wood be good. Second, let me change the URL of the site without needing to delete it. I think this used to be a feature but I couldn’t find it. I’ve been using the app for years and lost a bunch of data because I had to delete the site and reattach.

The ask is still great, but it child stand to be a bit more flexible.